GREELEY, Colo. — One day, pizzas could be delivering themselves. The possibility of drones taking a job that is often a teen’s introduction to the world of work came up early this year during a training program for Leslie Galindo-Salazar and other career counselors. Once she got over the shock – and was assured that other fields such as health and criminal justice would continue to offer opportunity – teen job specialist Galindo-Salazar was left with a new appreciation of the need for empathy and encouragement to help Americans through the dizzying disruptions technology is creating in the economy.
“The people-on-people interaction is going to be what helps us move forward,” says Galindo-Salazar, who is from the cattle, farming and mining plains of northeastern Colorado and this summer was among the first graduates of the Governor’s Coaching Corps.
The Corps was piloted as part of a broader jobs initiative in Colorado by Skillful. The nonprofit is a project of the New York-based Markle Foundation, started in 1927 by industrialist John Markle and his philanthropist wife Mary that has in the 21st century focused on using information technology to solve social problems. Gov. John Hickenlooper met Markle’s CEO and President Zoë Baird at a holiday party in Vail a few years ago and heard from her that Skillful was looking for a state to pilot thoroughly researched strategies for helping employees and employers navigate the digital, artificial intelligence and robotic revolution.
